Day 2 starts with a hearty breakfast

We had a slow start on day 2 – catching up on the missed sleep from the previous day. (The links to the entire series are at the bottom of this blog) There was a cafe called Flynbos Meeting Place we had identified for breakfast. The eggs benedict, pancakes and breakfast spread was just too good! Perfect way to begin the day!

The agenda for the day was to visit Ile Aux Cerfs – an island to the east of the mainland. It was 1 hour and 15 mins away and we had to pass through a bunch of small towns to get there.

As we got closer, Nam warned us to disregard any street signs which pointed to the public ferry port and just follow the map. This was much needed – the signs were made exactly like the official signboards to trick tourists and lead them to a port where they were overcharged.

The best way to get to Ile aux Cerfs

How to avoid this scam? Well, you’re at the right place to learn that! Look for a place called “Point Maurice” on the map – it is very close to the Shangri-La hotel. As you keep going along that road (it looks like a private road), you will reach a gate with a barrier. Just make an entry on the register there and mention the name of your hotel. This leads you to a dedicated parking area.

Boats to Ile aux Cerfs would leave every 30 mins and we were right on time for the 12pm one. Payment had to be done after we reached the island – 450 MUR per person which included a juice and a sun bed on the beach. A really sweet deal!

You may come across many organized trips to Ile aux Cerfs which include a waterfall, snorkelling and BBQ. These are priced much more than what we paid. We didn’t go for it as the activities didn’t excite us and we wanted the flexibility to reach and leave at our own time.

The boat jetty was in the middle of a bunch of mangroves. We sped past them as we headed towards the island. The weather was perfect, the water was clear and the mountains in the distance added to the view! We disembarked, completed our payment and walked towards the beach.

Avoiding scams and then falling into one

Ile aux Cerfs literally means Deer Island. It is called so because thousands of deer were introduced to the island in the 17th century for hunting. The deer are now gone, but the name remains.

The beach was beautiful! There were casuarina trees lining the beach and they were all bent back – possibly battered by cyclones over the years from the open ocean. We settled into our sunbeds and relaxed – the perfect beach vacation!

One guy approached us for a glass-bottom boat ride and snorkelling – he said there were only 2 marine parks in Mauritius – one here and the other in the south in Blue Bay. It sounded fishy as I hadn’t read about 2 marine parks. But this was one of my less-researched trips – so we went ahead and trusted him. There were some corals for sure but mostly dead. There were barely any fish – mostly sea urchins. Later, we got to know that this was a scam. There was no marine park here and the usual snorkelling place was much further away from the beach! Anyway, the boat ride was fun!

Finding new levels of boldness

As we got back, it started raining heavily – all our bags were lying open near the sun beds! Thankfully, not everything got drenched and whatever did was dried up by the hot sun that came right behind the rain. Island weather! Parth really enjoyed playing in the water and sand – he kept running back to the water to wash his beach toys (the ones from the hotel). We were bold enough to let him go into the water on his own as it was quite shallow.

It reminded us of the time we went to the Andamans over a decade ago – we had seen a European tourist sitting on the beach while his son was playing far away in the water all alone. At the time, we were shocked at how they were leaving the kid so freely. Now, we are doing the same!

We cleaned up in the common shower area and changed to catch the 3:30 pm boat back to Point Maurice. In the boat, we got some more rain – just enough to soak our dry clothes a bit! Our next stop was Belle Mare beach which was also on the east coast. On the way, we stopped for lunch at N1 Burgers and Cafe – where we ate octopus salad, panini, rice and noodles. The food was good!

A beach without a sunset

There was plenty of parking at Belle Mare beach – it was not crowded at all. Some boys played football and a few families were just enjoying the evening at the beach. Since there was no sunset to be seen, it looked like people didn’t prefer to come here much. It was nice being at the beach with a different view – there was no sun glaring in the eyes as we looked into the horizon. We stayed here till sunset and then headed back.

Through dense forests and villages

We passed next to the Flight SA 295 memorial (dedicated to the South African airways flight which crashed off the coast in 1987) and entered a dark forest. It was suddenly pitch black with very dense tree cover. We were inside the Bras D’Eau National Park. The only thing visible was the headlight of our own car and the road kept snaking through the trees. Thanks to the size of Mauritius, the forest ended soon and made way for the next village.

This got us thinking – there is no way that such dense forests could pop up out of nowhere and then disappear suddenly. The only explanation was that the entire island was covered in dense forest which was cut down to make way for plantations of sugarcane and settlements. We would see a shocking map depicting the same a couple of days later in Chamarel. We’ll cover it in detail when we get there.

Stargazing in the middle of nowhere

Most of the roads were pitch black and we figured it was the perfect time to check out the sky. We pulled over the car into a side road, got out and looked up. We hadn’t seen so many stars in such a long time! Thankfully, there were no clouds and we could clearly spot some of the popular constellations and planets. We spent a good amount of time soaking it in and then continued to our room.

The Swiggy of Mauritius

Our original itinerary had a visit to Château de Labourdonnais also planned but it didn’t happen as the place closed at 4 pm. We got back to our room and ordered food through an app called Delivery Dodo. We had seen one of their delivery agents pick up pizzas the previous day from the pizzeria. While the food was on its way, we went down to the supermarket next door to pick up some soft drinks.

We got back, had dinner and slept.

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Day 3 – Another relaxed start to the day (almost)

We were taking the island vacation theme seriously so far. A slow and relaxed start. We found a place called Island Babe Healthy Food for breakfast near Pereybere. It was in a residential area and the roads leading up to it were pretty much non-existent. However, the breakfast did not disappoint – eggs benedict, smoothie bowls and coffee – everything tasted really good.

If you noticed above in the section heading, I’ve mentioned “almost”. Well, the kids had other plans. They were playing – running around the table. Within a split second, they were outside the gate and on the main road. Luckily, it was a residential area with hardly any cars moving around. But it was enough to give everyone a scare. Such incidents are to be expected when travelling with a toddler – like the time when he ran into a cemetery in Georgia.

Taking care of unfinished business

The best part of travelling in a small country is that if you miss something on a particular day, you can always do it the next day – everything is only 1-1.5 hours away. If you have been following this series, you would have guessed where our first stop was – Château de Labourdonnais.

The roads cut through many sugarcane fields and we kept going deeper into it till we reached the gate of the Chateau. The entry tickets included access to the chateau, gardens and rum tasting. The chateau was built in 1859 and was the home of the Christian Wiehe family for over 150 years.

A spectacular reveal

The entrance led us through a garden full of mango trees – the kids enjoyed running around in the open space. It is a beautiful sight to watch toddlers running free – not something possible in the typical urban Indian setting which doesn’t have many public spaces. There is always a constant worry about potholes, stray dogs, traffic, garbage and the multitude of other threats. We turned towards a broad driveway lined with banyan trees.

These banyan trees were brought in from Sri Lanka when the chateau was being constructed. These trees were so old and huge that they concealed the chateau itself. It was really cool – the suspense kept building until we were right in front of it. That’s when we got a full view of the mansion.

Quick walkthrough of the chateau

The chateau was a 2 storey building which was preserved in its original form – with bedrooms, dining room, study and other rooms. Two lions flanked the main door – we found a family photo inside where two young girls were sitting on them (Parth took that photo as a license to try a sit on the lion himself – we had to drag him away!). There were maps of Mauritius made in the 1700s and letters written by members of the family. They also had frames with cross-sections of fruits that were found on the island.

Mangoes, deer and giant tortoises

After exploring the chateau, we walked to the orchard. Mango trees dominated this place – with mangoes growing in bunches and having a very different shape than what we get in India. It looked more like a peach. We had to make our way through this very quickly thanks to the hundreds of tiny mosquitoes! On one side of the orchard was a pet enclosure of sorts – it had many tortoises (including some huge Aldabra ones like the ones we saw in Seychelles).

In between the tortoises sat a deer with huge antlers. Some ducks and geese also played around in the enclosure. We spent some time watching the animals going about their activities. Parth’s keen eyes managed to find some tiny tortoises hidden away under a tree – none of us had seen them until then.

Juice, jellies and rum

The final part of the tour was a session with juices – mango and grapefruit, fruit jellies and 5-6 varieties of rum. I skipped the rum as I was the designated driver for the day. All the items were sourced and made within the estate itself which made it unique. Their souvenir store was pretty cool – we managed to find a local book called Dodoland for Parth – the story of a boy called Tikulu and his adventures in Mauritius as he attempts to find a single dodo. Don’t worry if you forget to buy the rum from the estate – it is also available in the big supermarkets as well as the duty free in the airport.

Off to the capital, Port Louis

The highway took us to the capital of Mauritius – Port Louis. It was the first time we saw big buildings in the country! Also, for the first time, we got traffic on the roads. It was a Saturday and all the main tourist sights like Aapravasi Ghat and Fort Adelaide had closed at 12pm. We headed to Caudan Waterfront thinking it would be a waterfront to roam around. When we got there, we realised it was a mall! Not something that we wanted to do.

After a quick regroup, our next destination was the Central Market. After some struggle, we finally found a parking spot. We couldn’t figure out if the parking was free or paid and after asking some folks passing by, we decided to leave it there. The market was vibrant and lively. We picked up some fruits and a bunch of souvenirs. We had plenty of snacks in the car and after the super heavy breakfast, no one was in the mood for lunch. So, we decided to head to a beach for the evening.

Trou-aux-biches

Literally translating to Deer’s Hole, this town was historically known for deer (no deer here now – similar to Ile aux Cerfs that we saw in the last blog). The beach had plenty of parking as we were very early. The beach was very beautiful with clean sand. It was perfect to make sand castles – that’s exactly what we did!

The only minor inconvenience was that the beach was crowded with dozens of boats – it made the whole place feel quite congested. But we managed to find a spot with some gaps and made the most of it. Parth had started enjoying the water even more by now and he was having a blast! 

We sat in the water and watched as the sun slowly came down towards the horizon and disappeared behind the clouds. We cleaned up, ate dinner at a pizzeria nearby and headed back to our room in Mont Choisy.

Check out the entire series on Mauritius here:

• The Mauritius Itinerary – Our one week itinerary of Mauritius
• Mauritius Travel Blog: First Day of Island Life – first sights and sounds and getting the trip started
• Ile Aux Cerfs, a Chateau and Finding Paradise in Mauritius – exploring the northern half of the island
• Breakfast with Giraffes and (not) Swimming with Whales – discovering the variety of wildlife in Mauritius
• Seven Colored Earths and Seaplane rides – the Hidden Gems of Mauritius